RICK DOBLIN HAD come to believe that psychedelic experiences are the "common core" of all religions, and he wanted to test this thesis. In February 1984, the 31-year-old college student living off a trust fund in Sarasota, Florida, typed out a letter to the United Nations, proposing a study that would double as a "training program for a variety of religious ministries." He needed only 50 volunteers, he said, plus a panel of scholars and religious mystics (including His Holiness the Dalai Lama) to judge the results.

Doblin reached out to several politicians for help too. He even wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II. In the meantime, he took on what might have been an even more daunting task, though today it sounds almost mainstream: turning MDMA into medicine.

Beginning in 2015, another psychedelic visionary, Roland Griffiths, initiated a research project nearly identical to what Doblin envisioned. A collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health, Griffiths' experiment gave psilocybin to two dozen "religious professionals"-Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim clergy on two separate occasions.

What happened is still mostly a mystery, as the paper has yet to be released. Just as the finishing touches were being finalized, Griffiths was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. At the same time, a controversy was growing in his lab that threatened to derail the psychedelic renaissance. The accusations centered on alleged misconduct involving the religious professionals study.

Five months after Griffiths died peacefully at his home in October 2023, The New York Times published a bombshell exposé that called the study's integrity into question. The article drew on two ethics complaints filed by a former protégé, a psychologist named Matthew Johnson whom Griffiths had groomed to be his replacement.